Category Archives: Atlanta

There’s still no IndyCar schedule for 2016, but when it is finally announced (assuming it is) rest assured we’ll have a rip-snortin’ reaction. A big league series should strive for consistency in scheduling with annual racing dates and locales – none of this fly by night, here one year and gone the next BS. The lineup should also contain twenty-plus races and obviously be announced before late October.

Barring that, IRR offers up our ideal slate of races with the added bonus of a brief description of each. Readers will notice a heavy dose of good ol’ fashioned oval tracks and a corresponding dearth of road courses, as it should be. Of course this would require some balls from IndyCar “leadership” and above all else the firing of series boss/mouthpiece Mark Miles. Ah, if only it were so.

Fontana: The track offers breath-taking open wheel racing and is a must for the schedule. Why not open the season with a thrilling five hundred miler before it gets too hot for those trendy, fair weather fans in California? The Dude abides.

Image from thefix.com

Long Beach: It’s a street circuit with some tradition, so unlike many others it survived the cut. The Beach is vastly superior to Sonoma, which doesn’t make our list. Sorry winos, but we prefer beer – and good racing.

Urgent note from IRR’s Editorial Board – Emergency Session: Snowed in, beyond bored and suffering the effects of cabin fever, our cracked soothsaying division implemented a hostile takeover of the editorial room and insisted these NASCAR predictions be published. We do so very much against our will. They made us do it! Rest assured, this site remains dedicated primarily to IndyCar, but extreme times call for extreme measures. The current situation certainly constitutes that. Need some good news? Feel fortunate you aren’t being held captive in an office building by a bunch of crazed fortune tellers this weekend.

Image from fanpop.com

Now for a word or two on NASCAR. First, a stolen race car?! Come on, fellas. Hire a security guard when you’re in Atlanta, for goodness’ sake. The Friday night fiasco “qualifying session” saw the inspection line resembling Black Friday at Wal-Mart with a number of cars disqualified and unable to post times. Instead they were ordered by owner points. THAT’s what the paying customers want.

Jeff Gordon called the ordeal “embarrassing.” Smoke, who didn’t turn an official lap, Tweeted “Frustrating!” It’s clearly no way to run a circus, even if there are new qualifying rules for 2015. We found the whole ordeal amusing. Our friends at Autoracing1 could hardly keep straight faces while Tweeting about it. Predictions published below were done so under duress –